Quiet Speculation: An MTGO Milestone

Magic the Gathering Online is about to reach a major milestone in it’s development. With the turning of the year, MTGO players can finally enjoy a constructed-format Pro Tour Qualifier from the comfort of their own homes. Aside from the obvious benefit of winning a Pro Tour spot in nothing but a bathrobe, there are rippling effects that will shape the rest of MTGO and even influence paper magic.

Before we jump into the details and implications of this monumental event, I’ll take a moment to introduce myself as this is my first article for MTGO Academy. I’m Kelly Reid, editor of Quiet Speculation.com, a gaming financial news website. I’ve appeared on The Magic Show with Evan Erwin, The Starkington Post, and have had a deck featured on Daily MTG at magicthegathering.com. I started playing in 1994, when Revised and The Dark were on sale, and I focus more on the fluctuations of the Magic economy than I do on improving your technical game or deck lists.

Magic Online is an interesting challenge for the financially-minded. Mired in the muck that is the Classifieds room is a raw, inefficient market that can be an absolute goldmine for speculators. Market reactions to demand are swift and severe, and are often predictable. In all this inefficiency lies moneymaking potential for the savvy trader. By successfully predicting trends, you can consistently net large percentage gains in short-swing trades by flipping a newly-anointed staple rare. Or to put it in layman’s terms, it’s pretty easy to go infinite if you know what you’re doing.

For the first time in Magic history, we’re going to have a constructed-format PTQ season that is only partially played with paper cards. We already had a sealed PTQ season, but that seems almost irrelevant compared to the demand that an Extended PTQ will create. Extended brings to mind powerful decks with expensive mana bases and powered by a few broken Mirrodin block artifacts. Fetch lands, Ravnica duals, Engineered Explosives and Chrome Moxes will all become much more relevant to MTGO players, along with a number of other expensive cards.

The paper season starts on the 2nd, so that’s about when we can expect to start seeing some price moves. After the first PTQ results come in, a starting metagame for the season will have been established. Expect the cards in the Top 8 decks to surge on MTGO. At first, the paper PTQs will shape the online metagame, but after the MTGO PTQs start putting out lists, then you’ll have a bit of cross-pollination going on. There will be differences, assuredly, and local metagames may not adjust as severely as a PTQ metagame might, but make no mistake – deck lists from MTGO qualifiers will effect the paper metagame, and vice versa.

Looking at the Worlds lists, there were a few cards that stood out. Tezzeret the Seeker is one of them, and it’s no surprise why. He’s the engine and win condition behind the eponymous “Tezzerator” deck that Louis Scott-Vargas and others played to a 5-1 record. The deck packs a bat-belt style suite of silver bullets that can be tutored up via Trinket Mage and Tezzeret. The one-of cards in the deck won’t see much of a price change, but Tezzeret himself should see a bump. LSV decks are always popular and let’s not forget that Shards of Alara is almost out of print on MTGO. Tezz is also mythic in rarity, and it wasn’t long ago that Master of the Wild Hunt and Nissa Revane showed what underplayed mythics can do when they find a home. Tezzeret should hit double digits before the season is done.

Meddling Mage is undervalued in both paper and perhaps even MTGO right now. The former chase rare is now selling for around $12 a playset in both formats. No one plays the card in Standard, but many Extended decks use four copies either main deck or out of the sideboard. Decks in Extended tend to have more tutoring, library manipulation, and thus, more cards to absolutely wreck you. If you know what you’re up against, Meddling Mage can be a godsend and turn unwinnable matches around. I wouldn’t expect double digits on MTGO or paper quite yet, but they can likely jump by 50-75%.

While it’s not a big money opportunity, snag your relevant uncommons now. Uncommons are sometimes more pricey than rares, and since we’re working with a lot of older sets, availability can become an issue. Some cards that might be good to acquire while they’re irrelevantly cheap: Spell Snare, Thirst for Knowledge, Thopter Foundry, and Remand are all viable staples.

Vendilion Clique, at $2 or so, could also have legs. The 3/1 flier can apply much-needed pressure in the Blue decks that usually take some time to set up, and the ability to force-cycle your opponent is stellar. Many times, the Clique will be a 3-power, 3 cost flier with flash and a Peek built in. The information alone is worth its weight in gold. Expecting Clique to pass $5 is unreasonable, but it could come close if a lot of the Blue mages, frustrated with Standard, choose a Blue deck for the upcoming season.

Cryptic Command might also have some room to grow. Hovering around $4, it doesn’t have as much potential, but it also has the very important distinction of a former chase rare. People are more likely to accept an expensive Cryptic Command than they are of something else, since they’ve already paid out for Cryptic Command before. If you need them, now’s a better time than later, but Cryptic probably won’t see a big jump.

Gifts Ungiven is another card that might see some price increases. It’s in the Vendilion Clique range as far as potential and current price is concerned. Thopter-Sword decks run Gifts, as do the Tezzeret decks and the Dark Depths deck. It’s up there with Meddling Mage and Engineered Explosives as one of the most-played cards in the format, and justified a heftier price tag than $2.

It’s crucial to remember that we’re just not used to the level of demand that an online PTQ will bring. While unlikely, there’s a small chance that they won’t be well-attended. If that’s the case, then soften your expectations for the cards to rise in value. If the more likely scenario occurs, and constructed PTQs create a massive run on the staple cards, you’ll be damned pleased you got in when the getting was cheap. It feels really bad to pay 150% on the day of the PTQ. If you’re planning on playing the format, then get your cards before the sharp increases begin. Even if you don’t plan to play, it could be a strong value play to collect the cheapest staple cards and try to turn a profit in the days leading up to the PTQs.

That’s all for this week! I’ll be writing every first and third Wednesdays here at The Academy, covering topics related to Magic financials, trading, and buying/selling. If you have any suggestions, questions or requests, leave a comment below and I’ll do my best to accommodate.

Rick-and-Roll,

Kelly Reid (kbreid)